WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT TREATING CHILD PHYSICAL ABUSE - A LITERATURE-REVIEW OF THE LAST DECADE

A literature review of articles on treatment of physically abused chil dren and treatment of physically abused parents was undertaken. Only a rticles that had more than five subjects in the sample, at least 15% o f the children in the sample having been physically abused and either pretest, posttest; comparison group; or randomization between differen t treatments used in the design were selected. Twelve papers meeting t hese criteria for abusive parents and 13 for treatment of abused child ren were found. Treatment duration ranged from 4 weeks to 12 months fo r parents and 4 weeks to 24 months for children. A wide range of treat ments were used, the most popular for children being therapeutic dayca re, with emphasis on improving developmental skills. While most progra ms showed some improvement with treatment, many had no, or very short, follow-up to see if improvement was sustained. More emphasis needs to be placed on rigorous evaluation and longer-term follow-up of childre n in physical abuse treatment programs.